Police are investigating a fatal shooting just outside the Occupy Oakland encampment in Northern California and the apparent suicide of a military veteran at an Occupy encampment in Vermont's largest city.

The Oakland killing is further straining relations between local officials and anti-Wall Street protesters. A preliminary investigation into the gunfire Thursday that left a man dead suggests it resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the camp on a plaza in front of Oakland's City Hall.

The Oakland death is the latest in a string of violent outbursts and disease outbreaks in Occupy protests throughout the country, coming the day after a 35-year-old veteran shot himself at the protest in Burlington, Vermont.

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Fatal: Medics try to revive a man shot at the Occupy Oakland protest Thursday, before he was transported to hospital and pronounced dead

Mystery: The Oakland shooting is still under investigation and police are looking for suspects but have not announced any clues to the public

As the varying protests continue throughout the country, the potential for violence in the camps and the spread of disease among groups of people living in unsanitary conditions spreads.

Tuberculosis has been traced to the base of the Occupy protests in Atlanta, Georgia.

The deaths in Oakland and Burlington are causing alarm among organizers and attendees.

Investigators do not yet know if the men in the Oakland fight on Friday were associated with Occupy Oakland, but they are looking into reports that some protest participants tried to break up the altercation, police Chief Howard Jordan said.

Mourning: Little is known about the Oakland shooting but onlookers said that they saw the two men involved in a verbal fight before one shot the other

Occupy grief: Police have yet to identify the victim officially

With opinions about the ongoing demonstration and its effect on the city becoming more divided in recent days, supporters and opponents immediately reacted to the homicide — the city's 101st this year.

Camp organizers said the attack was unrelated to their activities, while city and business leaders cited the death as proof that the camp itself either bred crime or drained law enforcement resources.

Mayor Jean Quan, who has been criticized by residents on both sides for issuing mixed signals about the local government's willingness to tolerate the camp, issued a statement Thursday calling for the camp to shut down.

'Tonight's incident underscores the reason why the encampment must end. The risks are too great,' Quan said. 'We need to return (police) resources to addressing violence throughout the city. It's time for the encampment to end. Camping is a tactic, not a solution.'

Tragic: Paramedics rush an ex-soldier to hospital yesterday after he apparently shot himself at the Occupy Vermont encampment in Burlington

Shock: A police officer questions a distraught witness at the Occupy Vermont camp

Investigation: Police look inside the tent where the military veteran was found with a gun shot wound

'This one heinous immoral crime should not overshadow all of the good deeds, positive energy and the overall goals that the movement is attempting to establish,' Khalid Shakur, 43, who has a tent in the encampment, said.

Before the shooting, protesters were planning to have a party to commemorate the encampment's one-month anniversary with music, dancing, a slide show and donated cakes. Instead, they opened a microphone for participants to talk about where the movement is headed.

'It's not a celebration anymore, but a period of reflection,' said Leo Ritz-Barr, a member of Occupy Oakland's events committee.

Consolation: Amanda Thayer, 29, is comforted by a friend in the aftermath of the shooting

John Lucas, 52, part of an Occupy Oakland medic team, said a fistfight involving several men preceded the gunfire.

'Several people went after one guy, and the group got larger, and they beat him and he ran,' Lucas said. 'There were six or seven shots. Everyone starts running ... and there was another shot.'

Lucas said he and other medics rushed to the wounded man and tried to tend to him until paramedics arrived.

'He was not breathing and there was no heartbeat,' he said. 'We started CPR.'

TUBERCULOSIS SCARE AT OCCUPY ATLANTA CAMP

A health scare hit Occupy Atlanta protesters this week after their home base tested positive for tuberculosis.

Residents at the homeless shelter, where protesters are gathered after being moved from the nearby Woodruff Park, have contracted the drug-resistant disease.

But tests for tuberculosis carried out on activists yesterday came back negative.

Occupy Atlanta leader Tim Franzen said: 'We have gone as far as having our folks get tested today for TB... No trace of any TB at all.'

Mr Jordan said the victim was hit by one bullet and he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

No suspects have been identified, said Jordan, who asked people participating in the protest who may have taken photographs or video that captured the shooting to contact authorities.

Though investigators in Burlington, Vermont have concluded preliminary investiations into the apparent suicide there. saying that the 35-year-old military veteran fatally shot himself in the head Thursday at an Occupy Wall Street encampment.

The name of the Chittenden County man is being withheld because not all of his family has been notified.

He shot himself inside a tent in City Hall Park. Mike Noble, a spokesman for the Fletcher Allen Health Care hospital in Burlington, confirmed that the man had died. Noble said he could provide no other details.

Infested: Unsanitary conditions have caused the spread of disease, and while some camps offer flu shots, many protesters are not participating because they fear it is a government ploy

Emily Reynolds, a University of Vermont student and a leader in the local Occupy movement, said: 'This person has clearly needed more help than we were capable of giving him here at this park.'

If the U.S. government provided better mental health services, she said, 'this probably wouldn't have happened'.

While no protesters have died as a direct result of illnesses contracted
in the parks, health administrators do fear that the onset of cold
weather will only help to exacerbate the unsanitary conditions.

In addition to the tuberculosis outbreak in Atlanta, protesters in the original outpost near Wall Street are catching what they have called 'Zuccotti Lung,' named after the park that serves as the base.

Respiratory illnesses like norovirus and the flu are easily spread among the protesters as they share drinks and cigarettes, and have little opportunity to wash their hands.

'It should go without saying that lots of people sleeping outside in a
park as we head toward winter is not an ideal situation for anyone’s
health,' the city's health department said in a statement.

The spread of disease and violence isn't stopping more people to get
involved with the movement, even students from elite- and expensive-
universities who are least likely to identify with the 99 per cent.

A police officer raises his hands to his head at the scene where a man was shot and killed near an Occupy Oakland encampment yesterday

Police brutality? Scott Campbell, 30, was left with severe bruising after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by police at the Occupy Oakland site in California earlier this month

Video footage of the moment Campbell was fired at from the line of riot gear clad officers standing in a line in front of him

With huge annual tuitions, multibillion-dollar endowments and long lists of powerful graduates working on Wall Street and in Washington, schools like Harvard and Yale embody the kind of institutions the Occupy movement – with its opposition to undue influence by those in the top tiers of society – was born to protest, but that has not stopped the students from joining in.

At Duke University in Durham, N.C., for instance, a small group of students has camped out for three weeks. On Wednesday night at the University of California at Berkeley, dozens were arrested during demonstrations against financial policies they blamed for causing deep cuts in higher education spending.

And in Harvard Yard on Wednesday, protesters gathered in front of the statue of school namesake John Harvard, calling for 'a university for the 99 percent'. A few dozen students then set up tents and stayed overnight, though police stopped any non-students from joining them.

Students urged a fair contract for custodial workers at Harvard, argued that it played a role in the financial crisis because of its influence, and should be socially responsible in its endowment investments.

'Harvard should reconsider its status as the training ground for the people who make our political and economic systems less democratic,' said Joe Hodgkin, a senior who has led meditation sessions at Occupy Boston.

Last week, students walked out of a popular introductory economics class, complaining of bias.

The actions have drawn plenty of skeptics, even at the schools themselves. On Wednesday, Harvard students in nearby dorms yelled derisively at the protesters, while another said the yard into which police had locked students was 'the richest prison in America'.